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More public money is being spent on education than ever before, but financial pressures and the number of teachers quitting their profession continues to rise. This series unpicks the connections between key decisions and their human impact, right across the system.

At stake is the future of Britain’s next generation. What should we expect of our teachers, our children and ourselves? Find out more on the BBC's programme page or look below for articles written by OU academic consultants.

Copyright: BBC
At Marlwood School, the Education Trust’s Chief Executive Will Roberts is confronted by a parent who is angry that her child is being taught maths by a member of the P.E. department. The school not only faces a national shortage of certain specialist teachers but their own recruitment challenges too. Marlwood has been put into “Special Measures” by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education. Applications for new teaching posts at the school are at an all time low, with no applicants for some subjects. Marlwood is forced to rely on supply staff and teachers on temporary contracts and with increasing funding issues the Head Teacher has few options but to consider raising class sizes.

The pressure increases on staff and pupils when Ofsted announces that it will be conducting a monitoring inspection in two days’ time.

Labelled “Inadequate” by Ofsted in July 2017, this is Marlwood’s chance to demonstrate it is making the changes needed to turn the school around. A poor inspection is potentially disastrous, as the school seeks to prove its progress to the local community and attract enough students to maintain a workable budget. With unprecedented access to the leader of the Ofsted team and the teachers facing scrutiny, this film documents the deeply personal fallout of a school in “Special Measures” and the consequences of an inspection that could decide the long term future of the school and those working within it.

Our qualifications

This flexible qualification offers three specialist routes – applied linguistics, inclusive practice, or leadership and management – enabling you to engage with issues, concepts, and debates in an area that supports your professional development. Your investigative study will draw on your own and others’ experience and on appropriate literature, and will develop your understanding of the role and the limitations of research in informing educational practice. The qualification includes a literature review in a topic of your choice, and a substantial dissertation or research project situated in your own practice. You will need some experience of working with learners, either in teaching, the education advisory service, educational administration or an allied field, which may include informal learning settings.

Copyright: Dreamstime

What makes young people tick? What shapes and influences children’s development? How can the adults who work with children support them more effectively? Childhood and youth studies is one of the UK’s fastest growing academic disciplines. The OU was a pioneer in this field and over the last 15 years has developed an engaging, wide-ranging, interdisciplinary programme for anyone working with children and young people or with a general interest in the field. You’ll learn about child development and psychology, international childhoods, research with children, and children’s literature – spanning the entire age range from early years to youth. The BA (Honours) Childhood and Youth Studies will develop your knowledge and analytical skills in relation to policies, practices and issues affecting the lives of children and young people across a range of settings.

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Are you interested in the education of children aged between 3 and 12? Are you thinking about pursuing a career within education or becoming a primary school teacher? This degree will give you a sound foundation for further study relevant to a range of roles within education. You'll develop your understanding of policy and practice in primary education, and gain the knowledge and skills needed to work collaboratively and equitably in a range of settings.

Our modules

With a strong focus on linking scholarship and research with your professional practice, this module explores aspects of educational leadership and management, particularly models of leadership, leading professional development and internal-facing change. It will help you to examine current issues and concerns in your own practice through collaborative learning with other students, contributing to your own identity as a practice leader. Through an experiential and reflective practice approach its focus on your individual professional development within your place of work means that it is essential that you have access to an education setting that can be linked to your study.

This module is for anyone interested and involved in educating school-age students. We live in a rapidly changing and complex social and digital world ? how is this changing the way we think about the kind of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment needed to educate future generations? As you interact with other students on this module, and engage critically with a range of media and published research, you'll consider current views of education across the globe. From there, you'll start to form your own vision of how educators can effectively prepare students for their place in the future.

Taking a critical theory approach, the module scrutinises education policy and practice, at both national and institutional levels, with regard to the way in which they inhibit or facilitate equality in society and the community. You will be introduced to core concepts pertaining to equality and social justice within the area of 'education', before focusing on the key elements of a critical theory approach to investigating issues of equality, and the research tools you can employ. The module requires you to challenge your own, and others', assumptions with a view to engaging in the process of transforming education policy and practice to effect greater equality and/or social justice.

Our FREE courses

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This free course, Exploring educational leadership, provides an overview of the field of educational leadership and management. You will explore: the relationships between management and leadership; the scope of the field; different world views that underpin educational leadership research and practice; and some key concepts such as agency, power and authority and context. You will consider some differences between concepts, models and theories and be introduced to some questions that will help you evaluate different educational leadership theories and models.

In this free course you will explore three big themes that are challenging the world itself and therefore education: the environment, demographic changes and the impact of technological advances. The key question is this: is education fit for this future?

This free course, Exploring equality and equity in education, considers the complexity of social justice as applied to education and reflects on the different purposes of, and value ascribed to, education in different countries and cultures. It discusses different conceptions of 'justice' and the distinction between equity and equality.

Copyright: The Open University
Before moving into Higher Education Jane was an English teacher, Head of Department, Senior Teacher and Head Teacher in various schools, beginning as a young teacher in the Philippines then moving to Sri Lanka, Uruguay, Namibia and finally to Egypt, specialising throughout in secondary school education. She heads the Masters in Education and Masters in Childhood and Youth programme at the OU which currently attracts about one thousand students, and specialises in Leadership and Management qualifications, which typically attract both serving and aspiring members of school leadership teams. Throughout her career in Higher Education, she been associated with the professional development of teachers, for example through the work of the Teacher Education in sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) programme working on projects across Africa with colleagues from universities and NGOs in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Republic of Sudan, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia. She served as Director of TESSA 2012-2014 and since then she has worked as a key adviser on a major DfID-funded teacher education project in Ghana, on projects in South America including an FCO-funded project working with the Ministry of Education in Peru and on research projects involving teachers and head teachers in Bangladesh and India. She has just taken up the role of Academic Director of OpenStem Africa, a project where the OU will be working with university partners and secondary schools in Ghana to improve science teaching and increase girls’ participation in STEM subjects.

Dr Clare Lee, Lecturer in Education

Copyright: The Open University
Clare's research is grounded in extensive professional experience as a mathematics teacher and as a local authority assessment consultant. Her current research concerns the improvement of learning and teaching and assessment both in mathematics and across the curriculum. One of the key outcomes of her work is the construct of “Mathematical Resilience”. Teaching for resilience requires a learning environment that is a positive place for the students where barriers to learning can be overcome. She has a responsibility for the creation of two innovative distance learning masters modules which she currently chairs. EE830 Learning and Teaching: Educating the next generation will be the first of a new pathway and is forging a new practices in agile production and active presentation. She also co-ordinates an area of study within the Doctor in Education programme. Her construct of Mathematics Resilience is making an impact both nationally and internationally. In January 2015 she convened the Shard Symposium in London, which was followed by the First and Second Internal Conference on Mathematical Resilience in March 2016 and March 2017. At these conferences papers were presented showing how and why mathematical resilience is important across all strata of society.

Dr Clare Woodward, Lecturer in International Education

Copyright: The Open University
In Clare's early career in education she worked in English Language teaching for more than ten years in secondary, tertiary and adult learning sectors in France, Malaysia and the Middle East including refugee education and then moved into widening participation in the UK so she has long-standing interest and experience in inclusion in education. She joined the OU in 2009 as a lecturer in Teacher Education and International Development, supporting the development of teachers and schools in Asia, Africa and South America. She has also extensively explored the potential of digital technologies as tools for professional development and pedagogic practice, in both developed and developing economy contexts.

Her teaching experience at the OU is closely connected to School as she has recently worked on authoring two OU modules, one for the Masters in Education on ‘Learning and Teaching: Educating the Next Generation’ and one for the Primary qualification on ‘Comparative Studies in Primary Education’. Both these modules are looking at how schools, and teaching and learning in particular, operate in the current environment.

She has worked extensively with a range of media including the production of audio-visual resources for the award winning English in Action project.

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